An investigation of North America’s most famous ex-priest’s assertion that the Roman Catholic Church was behind the assassination of America’s greatest President

Charles Chiniquy was born in Quebec and came to be considered in death as one of Maclean’s magazine's "top 100 Canadians". Chiniquy became famous as a Catholic priest in the mid-1800s for persuading a reported 200,000 people in his native Quebec to stop drinking. At the time, most families in the province had a portrait of him in their household.

In 1851, he accepted an invitation to establish a French-Canadian Catholic colony on the unsettled prairie south of Chicago. Five years later, he met and befriended Abraham Lincoln, then a lawyer. Lincoln defended Chiniquy in two court actions, one of them the most high profile libel case in Lincoln’s legal career. In 1858, Chiniquy left the Catholic religion of his childhood and became a Protestant, followed by more than a thousand of his countrymen. Known as the "Martin Luther of North America", his fame increased worldwide as he spent the rest of his life speaking and writing extensively against the Church of Rome and trying to win his former co-religionists to simple faith in Jesus Christ. He died in Montreal, his obituary appearing on the front page of the New York Times.

In his 1885 autobiography, Fifty Years in the Church of Rome, Chiniquy made the stunning claim that officials of his former Church were responsible for the murder of his close friend Abraham Lincoln. Who Killed Abraham Lincoln? is an examination of his assertions and details the evidence available today that supports Chiniquy’s claim that the assassination of the President in 1865 was the result of a Catholic plot. This plot also included the murder of Vice President Andrew Johnson and Secretary of State William Seward, with the intent to thwart the Union from defeating the Southern Confederates. This is that story.

About the author:

Paul Serup is an independent researcher and author based in Prince George, BC and has spent 22 years researching this material. The original research needed for the work brought him to libraries, archives, museums and cemeteries in communities such as St. Cloud and St. Paul, Minnesota, through Chicago, Springfield and Urbana, Illinois, St. Louis, Washington D.C., Baltimore, New York City and Canadian locations as well.